Man From Mundania by Piers Anthony Page B

answer. Oops—she had forgotten that
     
    her father. King Dor, wasn't here. It was his talent to
    speak to the inanimate and to have it answer in the human
    language. He had resided so long in Castle Roogna that
    his magic had infused those parts of the castle that he used
    a lot. Thus she always talked to the castle door, and it
    normally opened for her because it recognized her. But
    this wasn't really Castle Roogna; this was an imitation
     
    one, a setting in the realm of bad dreams. So her father
    wasn't here, and his magic had not rubbed off.
     
    "Uh, doors don't know people," Grey said delicately.
    "You have to turn the knob."
     
    Ivy was getting tired of his patronizing attitude about
    magic. So she decided to make a small demonstration. She
    concentrated on the door, enhancing its affinity to her fa-
    ther. It was an emulation of the real front door of Castle
    Roogna, so there was a basis for this; if she made it even
    more like the real door, it would be able to respond in the
    manner of the original.
     
    Then she spoke to it again. "Door, if you don't open
    this instant, I'll kick your shin panel!"
     
    The door hastily swung open.
     
    It was very satisfying to see Grey's gape.
     
    Then he recovered. "Oh—it wasn't locked. Must have
    been blown open."
     
    "By what wind?" Ivy inquired sweetly. The air was
    now quite still.
     
    But Grey merely shrugged. The door might not be
    locked, but his mind was. It was most annoying.
     
    They stepped in. The entrance hall was empty, of
    course. Ivy had seen many people and creatures she knew,
    scattered around the Enchanted Mountain, but rather than
    confuse things she had asked them to fade out. Since they
    were all ghosts, they had obliged. That way she had seen
    nothing that Grey hadn't seen, which made the climb eas-
    ier. The same was true here in the castle, and it seemed
    better to leave it that way.
     
    "It's empty!" Grey said, as if surprised.
     
    "It isn't the real castle," she reminded him. "This is
    the dream realm, with settings for all the bad dreams. So
    there aren't any folk here except when they come to make
    up a dream concerning Castle Roogna, and then they aren't
    real folk, just the gourd actors."
     
    He looked at her as if about to Say Something for Her
    Own Good, but managed to stifle it. "So where do we go
    from here?"
     
    "Wherever this sailing mountain takes us," she replied.
    "We should keep watch, and when it passes some region
     
     
     
     
    76          Man from Mundania
     
    I recognize, we can get off and I'll lead us home to the
     
    real Castle Roogna."
     
    Again that Own Good expression crossed his face, but
    again it was displaced by Not Yet. "But if this is the—the
    realm of dreams, you won't be able to reach the real, uh,
     
    Xanth from here."
     
    "Yes I will—when I see a section of the gourd I rec-
    ognize. I've been through it before, you know. So if I see
    the sea of castor oil—" But she did not care to complete
    that thought; the notion of diving into that awful stuff made
     
    her sick.
     
    "A sea of castor oil?" he asked blankly.
    "Well, maybe it's just a lake of it. You know—the oil
    that leaks from castors, those little wheels that move fur-
    niture around. They feed it to children to make them feel
     
    bad."
     
    "I remember," he said, making a face. "We get some-
    thing similar from beans. That's the stuff of bad dreams,
     
    all right!"
     
    ' 'Wouldn't you know it—in Mundania it's the bad things
     
    that grow on trees!" she exclaimed.
     
    "On plants, anyway," he agreed wryly. "We have many
    horrendous plants: nuclear, munitions, sewage—"
     
    "So if I see that lake, I'll know where we are, and then
    I can go the same route I used as a child to return directly
    to Castle Roogna. There's a candy garden, and a bug house
    and other awful stuff."
     
    "A candy garden is awful?"
     
    "Because of the temptation. If you take even one lick
    of a lollypop, you're stuck in the dream realm forever,